1. Plot: From beginning to end.

2. Plot refers to the chain of related events that take place in a story.

3. It is the writer’s blueprint for what happens, when it happens, and to whom it happens.

4. Authors must arrange conflicts, complications, and resolutions to create cause and effect relationships.

5. Readers must not only understand what is happening, but WHY it is happening.

6. Let’s look at the stages of plot as a line…

7. Exposition
Exposition: Lays the groundwork for the plot and provides the reader with essential background information.

8. Rising Action
Exposition
Rising Action: Complications usually arise, causing difficulties for the main characters and making the conflict more difficult to resolve.

9. Climax
Rising Action
Exposition
Climax: The turning point of the action—the moment when interest and intensity reach their peak. The climax usually involves an important event, decision, or discovery that affects the final outcome.

10. Falling Action: The events after the climax.
Rising Action
Exposition
Falling Action: The events after the climax.

11. Climax
Falling Action
Rising Action
Exposition
Resolution
Dẻnouement: The resolution of the story—the tangles of the plot are untied and the mysteries are solved.

12. Climax
In Media res
Falling Action
Rising Action
Exposition
Resolution
In Media res: A Latin term meaning “in the middle of the action”—that is, just as an important event is about to take place. (When does the story begin?)

13. Climax
Flashback
Falling Action
Rising Action
Exposition
Resolution
In Media res: Flashback—going back in time to describe events that have taken place before the story begins.

14. Climax
Foreshadowing
Falling Action
Rising Action
Exposition
Resolution
In Media res: Foreshadowing—hint at things that might happen later in the story.

15. Another way of seeing it….
Climax ? !
Falling Action
Rising Action
Exposition
Resolution
Another way of seeing it…

16. Questions to Guide Analysis
Is the plot arranged in chronological order, or does it begin In Media res?
Does the plot involve a flashback? If so, what is its purpose?
What is the nature of the conflict?
What conditions at the outset make the situation unstable?
Is the conflict external or internal?
What is the high point, or climax?
How is the conflict resolved? Is there no resolution—why not? What is the story inconclusive?
What patterns do you find in the plot’s structure?